1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of network service and content delivery, and specifically in one aspect to delivering contextually related groups of content to network users.
2. Description of Related Technology
In the context of network services, it is often highly desirable to provide users of the network with ready and instant access to a variety of different types of content, such as audio or video clips, news stories, instructional materials, etc. In many cases, it is also desirable to provide the same user with “secondary” content which is related to the “primary” content which the user selected in the first place. Myriad different reasons for providing such related secondary content exist, including inter alia, (i) to increase advertising effectiveness, revenue and product sales (i.e., commerce-related), (ii) to provide additional sources of information that the user can follow up on if interested, and (iii) to make the user aware of corresponding events or occurrences that they may not be otherwise aware of, without having to take the affirmative action of looking for them.
One of the difficulties associated with providing such primary and related secondary content is the task of determining the scope of secondary material to provide. If the user is inundated with a flood of secondary material, they are often less likely to utilize it, since it requires a significant investment in time to navigate through the material to identify items of interest. Conversely, if too few or irrelevant secondary materials links are provided, the user will be unlikely to utilize them since they view them as having little utility. Hence, a balance is optimally struck, ideally by providing the user with a limited number of highly relevant secondary materials or links thereto. This is especially critical where the display area size, available time frame, and so forth are very limited, such as on an Internet web page devoted to multiple different topics and media.
In addition to the relevance and volume of secondary information, the display paradigm used to convey this information to the user must be considered. For example, the now ubiquitous “pop up” window on the Internet is a mechanism whereby a user visiting a given URL or website link may invoke the spawning of a separate window (e.g., using Javascript or the like) on the user's display. As most will attest, however, these pop-up windows are often quite annoying and distracting to the computer user, from a number of perspectives. First, they cause a new process to be created, thereby reducing CPU efficiency (i.e., make the user's computer run more slowly). This is especially true where the computer or other such device already has several applications/processes/threads running.
Second, they are a distraction to the user, since whether minimized or not, visual changes to the user's display occur. Realignment/shifting of the user's browser display bars also may occur when the new window opens, thereby further distracting the user, even if only momentarily.
Third, these windows may contain links to e.g., surreptitious sites who will download spyware or other such malicious content to the user's computer if the user activates the link, even by mistake.
Additionally, these windows will remain active until affirmatively closed by the user.
Also well known in the prior art are context-specific “banner” advertisements, which generally are disposed in designated regions of the upper, lower, or side portions of the user's display. These advertisements are often context-sensitive from the standpoint that their content is selected based on either the user's selection of hyperlinks, or one or more search terms used by the user in a search engine.
Further known in the prior art is the Internet content (e.g., radio) advertisement, which typically runs before the “primary” content (in this case, the digitized audio stream from an Internet radio provider), within the media player application window. For example, when one opens their Windows™ Media Player application and selects an Internet radio station, many such stations will cause a short audio-visual advertisement or promotion to be loaded and played before the primary content audio stream starts playing. However, such secondary (advertising) content is not in any way related to the context of the primary content, and cannot be controlled or selected by the user.
A number of other approaches to secondary content delivery (including delivery of related advertising) over networks are evidenced prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,084,628 to Sawyer issued Jul. 4, 2000 entitled “System and method of providing targeted advertising during video telephone calls” discloses a system in a telecommunications network for providing targeted advertising to subscribers utilizing display screens to conduct a video telephone call. The system comprises a centralized database of subscriber advertising preferences, an information source, a calling subscriber's switch connected to the database and the information source, and a called subscriber's switch connected to the calling subscriber's switch. The database of subscriber advertising preferences stores advertising preferences for subscribers in the network, and is updated whenever a subscriber selects a displayed advertisement for more information. The information source stores a plurality of advertisements, and includes an advertisement selector which selects advertisements based on the advertising preferences for an identified subscriber such as the calling subscriber. The calling subscriber's switch retrieves the advertising preferences for the calling subscriber from the database and sends the preferences to the information source. The switch then retrieves the selected advertisements from the information source and generates a window on the calling subscriber's display screen which displays the retrieved advertisements. The retrieved advertisements are also sent to the called subscriber's switch for simultaneous display to the called subscriber.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,311,194 to Sheth, et al. issued Oct. 30, 2001 entitled “System and method for creating a semantic web and its applications in browsing, searching, profiling, personalization and advertising” discloses a system and method for creating a database of metadata (metabase) of a variety of digital media content, including TV and radio content delivered on Internet. This semantic-based method captures and enhances domain or subject specific metadata of digital media content, including the specific meaning and intended use of original content. To support semantics, a WorldModel is provided that includes specific domain knowledge, ontologies as well as a set of rules relevant to the original content. The metabase may also be dynamic in that it may track changes to the any variety of accessible content including live and archival TV and radio programming. Targeted advertising involves creating an XML string that represents queries that the user performs or individual media assets in which the user has an interest. This XML string is sent to an external advertisement provider along with a user's session and profile information.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,453,347 to Revashetti, et al. issued Sep. 17, 2002 entitled “Active marketing based on client computer configurations” discloses a system and method for actively marketing products and services to a user of a client computer such as over a network. A product information database comprising product summary files that facilitate determination of presence or absence of products associated with the client computer, a marketing rule knowledge base comprising opportunity rule files governing marketing opportunities, and an opportunity detection object for determination of marketing opportunities are utilized to determine active marketing opportunities and may be downloaded to the client computer from a service provider computer system. The opportunity detection object may comprise a scan engine, an opportunity analysis engine, and a presentation engine which collectively determine and present marketing information to the client computer user. The scan engine compares the client computer against the product information database to determine the configurations of the client computer and to generate a client computer inventory database. The opportunity analysis engine analyzes the client computer inventory database against the marketing rule knowledge base and generates a list of marketing opportunities for the client computer. The presentation engine analyzes the list of marketing opportunities and provides marketing and/or other information regarding marketed products to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,487,538 to Gupta, et al. issued Nov. 26, 2002 entitled “Method and apparatus for local advertising” discloses a method and apparatus for local advertising. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) or proxies owned by an ISP insert advertisements transmitted from a web host to a client. The advertisement may be stored in the proxy's cache or may be retrieved from a web server for an advertiser. By providing the ISP with the ability to insert the advertisement, advertisements appear on small web sites that do not normally attract advertisers. Additionally, due to the number of advertisements placed by an ISP, small advertisers may have their advertisement appear in connection with frequently used web sites. One or more embodiments of the invention provide for an ISP to collect and store demographic information such as the user's age, residence, credit history, etc. Additionally, stored information may include web sites the user has accessed, time spent on each web site, and any searches performed by the user. The profile information may be utilized by the proxy to conduct targeted advertising and to associate a cost with certain demographic information. The profile information may be evaluated by the ISP for advertisement insertion. Alternatively, the profile information may be forwarded to an advertiser or advertising agency that evaluates and forwards back an advertisement for the proxy to transmit to the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,513,052 to Binder issued Jan. 28, 2003 entitled “Targeted advertising over global computer networks” discloses a method and system for presenting targeted advertising during an Internet-based connection, such as a web-based data backup session in which data is communicated from a user computer to a remote storage area for archival via the Internet. The user computer is communicatively coupled to the server via a computer network and an asset profile for the computer is generated. The asset profile identifies the software applications that are currently loaded on the computer and the current hardware configuration for the computer including a processor type and connected hardware devices. In addition, the asset profile contains usage information such as a frequency of use for the various software applications. As a function of the uploaded asset profile, advertisements are selected from an advertisement database and are communicated to the computer for display to the user. Because of the detailed asset information, targeted advertising information having correlation to the user's computing behavior can be selected and displayed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,611,842 to Brown issued Aug. 26, 2003 entitled “Method and apparatus for generating profile data” discloses a computer system that includes a database storing user histories of selected products, and a database associating products with assessments of their content in a number of different categories. The computer system generates user profile data reflecting the underlying characteristics of user preferences by identifying categories and groups of categories corresponding to products in the user histories whose content assessments are one of an extremely high and low evaluation. In the user profile data, larger groups of categories having extremely high or low content evaluations are weighted more heavily than smaller groups of categories and singly identified categories having extremely high or low content evaluations. The generated user profile data can be utilized to provide targeted advertising and/or to automatically select products are identified with similar underlying characteristics of the user preferences.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,175 to Gazdzinski issued Sep. 2, 2003 entitled ““Smart” elevator system and method” discloses a speech recognition and analysis system for providing contextually-related information to, inter alia, the passengers of an elevator car. Speech (and optionally other user inputs) are sampled to determine their context, and advertising or other contextually related information displayed to the user on an in-car display, and/or output to their personal electronic device (PED).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,718,551 to Swix, et al. issued Apr. 6, 2004 entitled “Method and system for providing targeted advertisements” discloses a method and system for providing targeted advertisements over a networked media delivery system, especially interactive television networks. The invention comprises tracking and storing viewer selections, analyzing the selections, and delivering targeted advertisements that appeal to the particular subscriber making the selections, the system including a merge processor, a file server, a profile processor, and a broadcast server contained in a head end in communication with a plurality of set-top boxes through a distribution network. Based on a subscriber's viewing habits and account information, the present invention delivers different, customized advertisements to different viewers watching the same program or channel. The present invention delivers the advertisements as either still frame bit maps or as video streams advertisement insertion in a playlist or a broadcast media program.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,771,290 to Hoyle issued Aug. 3, 2004 entitled “Computer interface method and apparatus with portable network organization system and targeted advertising” discloses a method and apparatus for providing an automatically upgradeable software application that includes targeted advertising based upon demographics and user interaction with the computer. The software application includes a display region used for banner advertising that is downloaded over a network such as the Internet. The software application is accessible from a server via the network and demographic information on the user is acquired by the server and used for determining what advertising will be sent to the user. The software application further targets the advertisements in response to normal user interaction with the computer. Data associated with each advertisement is used by the software application in determining when a particular advertisement is to be displayed. This includes the specification of certain programs that the user may have so that, when the user runs the program (e.g., a spreadsheet program), a relevant advertisement will be displayed (e.g., an advertisement for a stock brokerage). This provides two-tiered targeting of advertising; both demographically and reactively.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,775,842 to Van Gestel issued Aug. 10, 2004 entitled “Method and arrangement for transmitting and receiving encoded images” discloses TeleWeb services in which HTML-encoded images are transmitted in the vertical blanking interval of a conventional analog television signal. For special applications, such as subtitling and targeted advertising, the relevant TeleWeb images must be displayed substantially in synchronism with given video frames of the television signal. This is achieved by transmitting the encoded images in advance and provide them with a time stamp which specifies the display time in terms of a reference clock. The reference clock is preferably derived from the teletext clock time. A possible display time stamp format is hh:mm:ss'ff, where ff specifies a frame within a second. At the receiver end, the teletext clock is interpolated to reconstruct the reference clock, and the subtitles are buffered until the display time stamp matches the actual clock time.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,799,201 to Lee, et al. issued Sep. 28, 2004 entitled “Remotely configurable multimedia entertainment and information system for vehicles” discloses an internet radio for portable applications and uses such as in an automobile. The internet radio allows access to audio, visual and other information. Normal radio channel function is provided along with programmable content and channel selection, as well as automatic content and channel updating by location and style. Internet access is also provided. Direct or targeted advertising, as well as electronic commerce is supported. Connection to the internet is through wireless communications. Programmability is achieved off-line via a web page and remote computer. Customized information is also communicated to the radio such as stock quotes, travel information, advertising, and e-mail. Onboard global positioning allows for channel updating by location, traffic information, geographic advertising and available similar content. User profile databases contain information about the user's system preferences (e.g., channels selected), billing information and a purchasing interest profile. Information in advertising databases can be compared against a user's purchasing interest profile through an adaptive profiler so that advertisements inserted into delayed personalized digital broadcasts mesh with that individual's buying interests.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,804,659 to Graham, et al. Oct. 12, 2004 entitled “Content based web advertising” discloses an internet target marketing system, method and computer program for distributing online advertising to viewers based upon the viewers' interests. Specific embodiments can use an n-way matching of user's concepts of interest, advertiser's concepts and a currently viewed document to target advertising to the view of the current document. Some embodiments can generate a contextually sensitive advertisement for each page viewed in a browser, thereby associating an advertisement with every page in a document. Specific embodiments can associate advertising with documents that are substantially free of embedded advertisements, for example. Alternative embodiments can include embedded advertising, however.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,850,252 to Hoffberg issued Feb. 1, 2005 entitled “Intelligent electronic appliance system and method” discloses an electronic appliance including a user interface, data input and/or output port, and an intelligent processor. A preferred embodiment comprises a set top box for interacting with broadband media streams, with an adaptive user interface, content-based media processing and/or media metadata processing, and telecommunications integration. An adaptive user interface models the user, by observation, feedback, and/or explicit input, and presents a user interface and/or executes functions based on the user model. A content-based media processing system analyzes media content, for example audio and video, to understand the content, for example to generate content-descriptive metadata. A media metadata processing system operates on locally or remotely generated metadata to process the media in accordance with the metadata, which may be, for example, an electronic program guide, MPEG 7 data, and/or automatically generated format. A set top box preferably includes digital trick play effects, and incorporated digital rights management features. Some selective targeting of particular audiences is also disclosed.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,856,673 to Banks, et al. issued Feb. 15, 2005 entitled “Targeted advertising in a telephone dialing system” discloses a system and method for providing targeted advertising to telephone callers in mid-dial. The invention monitors the dialing activities of a caller. When a caller enters a partial desired telephone number, an embodiment of the invention receives the partial number and determines whether an advertisement should be presented to the caller. If all of the appropriate conditions are met, a selected advertisement is transmitted to the caller's telephony device and the caller is given the opportunity to respond to the advertisement before the dialing operation completes.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20030101451 to Bentolila, et al. published May 29, 2003 entitled “System, method, and software application for targeted advertising via behavioral model clustering, and preference programming based on behavioral model clusters” discloses a method and system for TV user profile data prediction and modeling that allows behavioral clustering. A client-side system classifies television consumers into representative user profiles. The profiles target individual user advertising and program preference category groups. A contextual behavioral profiling system determines the user's monitor behavior and content preferences, and the system may be continually updated with user information. A behavioral model database is queried by various system modules. The programming, including targeted advertising for television and interactive television is based on the profile data prediction, modeling and preference determination. The system is enabled to present a program sequence to the viewer based on the preference determination and stored programming. The latter is referred to as automatic program sequence (virtual channel) creation and the virtual channel can be presented as a separate channel in an electronic programming guide (EPG).
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20030191689 to Bosarge, et al. published Oct. 9, 2003 entitled “Method and apparatus for adding advertising tag lines to electronic messages” discloses a computerized method and device for intercepting contracting client's sent electronic messages, scanning the message body content for key words, sending the key words to a remote central computer server which analyses the key words and enhances the message by attaching a relevant, contextual advertising tag line or image/banner/words/HTML/Flash, etc to the electronic message, and transmitting the enhanced message to a receiver.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20040186777 to Margiloff, et al. published Sep. 23, 2004 entitled “Systems and methods for providing contextual advertising information via a communication network” discloses systems and methods to display contextual advertising information to a user via a communication network. In some embodiments, an advertising rule may be directed to providing a user with contextual advertising information. For example, an advertisement for tire repair or other tire-related information may be provided to the user in response to the user's search for “tires”.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20050080775 to Colledge, et al. published Apr. 14, 2005 entitled “System and method for associating documents with contextual advertisements” discloses a system and method of associating results from a query from a user directed to a search engine to advertisements associated with the search engine. In the method, there are the steps of: obtaining advertisement keyword “senses” associated with the advertisements; disambiguating the query to identify query keyword senses associated with the query; expanding the query keyword senses to include relevant semantic synonyms for the query keyword senses to create a list of expanded query keyword senses; using the expanded keyword senses to search the advertisement keyword senses to locate relevant advertisements correlating to the query; and providing the relevant advertisements to the user. The system incorporates modules conducting steps of the method.
Despite the foregoing broad variety of techniques for providing various types of content (including advertising) to users of a network, each suffer from various disabilities including: (i) proving secondary content which is unrelated or only marginally related to the primary content; (ii) providing too many forms or instances of secondary content, thereby overwhelming the user; (iii) providing secondary content via a separate display element (e.g., pop-up window or banner) which is distracting and breaks the continuity of the user's visual experience; and (iv) lack of applicability to various types of networks and transport mechanisms (i.e., network agnostic).
Hence, it would be highly desirable to provide a solution to displaying or otherwise providing secondary content (such as, e.g., advertising) which is closely related to the subject matter of the primary content, yet which does not cause any perceptible annoyances or detriments to the user's on-line or viewing experience, yet which effectively and prominently makes such secondary content available to the user. Such an improved approach would ideally (i) provide a seamless and integrated display experience, (ii) return a limited number of the most relevant results, so as to further enhance the user's experience, and (iii) be substantially network agnostic so that it could be adapted to various different types of network topologies, infrastructures, transport mechanisms, and programming environments. Such improved solution would also be amenable to control for business and/or operational reasons.